Night Moves (Doc Ford) - By RandyWayne White Page 0,17

question.

When I mentioned the storm clouds, Futch stepped away from the plane, wiped his hands on a towel, and looked for himself. “How about you two go back to marking snags while I finish here? Once I know what I have to work with, we can decide what to do.”

“I don’t mind walking,” Tomlinson said. “Doc mentioned the weight problem.”

Thinking I must also have mentioned the boa constrictors, Dan showed surprise. “Well, Quirko, you’ve got a bigger set of balls than me,” he said and went back to work.

—

WELL, I COULDN’T LET him hike out alone, could I?

An hour later, two miles from where we’d watched the seaplane lift off, carrying only our pilot, Tomlinson stopped to rest, saying, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. How much farther, you think?”

I replied, “You can’t be tired already.”

“I keep stepping in holes. Can’t see a goddamn thing, the water’s so black. How about a drink?”

I was carrying a canvas knapsack over my shoulder. Long ago I learned to never set foot on a boat or a small plane without packing the essentials: flashlight, gloves, knife, first-aid basics, mosquito spray, a clip-on strobe, and a handheld VHF radio. From the seaplane, I had added two bottles of water, a liter each, which wasn’t enough for a long hike in the Glades, but it was all we had.

I tossed a bottle to Tomlinson, said, “Hang on to it,” then stepped up onto a slab of limestone. The sudden elevation was like surfacing through a flaxen sea. Horizon to horizon, sawgrass reflected sunlight and heat, flagging wind currents that furrowed the surface like tumbleweed, then springing back in flashes of copper and wheat. To the north was an island of cypress trees . . . an orb of shadows, mossy blue, that felt cool to the eye. Behind us was more sawgrass, our trail a temporary scar that was being reclaimed faster, it seemed, than we could walk. To the west, I noticed, a small plane was coming our way. No pontoons, so it wasn’t Dan.

“Beautiful out here,” I said. “Smells good, too.”

Tomlinson took another gulp of water as he untied his basketball shoes, something wrong with his feet. “You’re awful damn cheery. I thought you were pissed at me for refusing to fly.”

“That’s not the reason,” I said. “But I am.”

“Then let’s talk about it. . . Awww, shit. Look at this.”

“I’ve seen your feet. No thanks.”

“I think I broke my toe, man. Wish we had some ice . . . Crap, I think I’m gonna lose this nail for sure.”

“Great!” I said. I took the second bottle of water, found a dry spot for the knapsack, then stood and rolled my shoulders. “Five-minute break. Then we go.”

For an hour we’d been plowing north toward a two-lane road that crosses the Everglades—the Tamiami Trail—and this was the first we had spoken other than to kibitz about directions or to call a warning about the terrain. I’d done most of the warning because it was easier for me, wearing leather gloves, to bull a path through the sedge. Water depth varied abruptly, and so did the bottom. After long bouts of muck, we would exit onto a ridge that was a honeycomb of limestone, its unseen holes masked by sedge and water. The limestone was sharp, honed by a current centuries old, and spiked the crevices that consumed our legs to the thigh.

We were on one of those ridges now.

The little plane was still angling toward us, but the landscape was far more compelling. My eyes allowed it to flood in. “It would be nice to spend a few nights out here,” I said. “All you’d need is a tarp and one of those handheld filtration pumps for water. I’ll bet there’re guava trees at the rim of that cypress head. Seminoles did agriculture sometimes, when they camped. And plenty of fish, if it came to that. Deer, feral hogs. I’ve read there are varietals of orchids and apple snails out here that still haven’t been described. Scientifically, of course.”

“Fascinating,” Tomlinson replied, inspecting his other foot. “You’ve been crabby as hell lately, know that? But one plane crash later, you’re all sunshine and lollipops. I’ll never understand the rational mind.”

I didn’t reply, although there was some truth to what he’d said. We’d left behind the twenty-first-century world, with its cobweb of electronic ties, and it felt good to be dropped into the middle of nowhere. The Everglades was a separate reality from the comfortable